Letters to the editor for Saturday, September 21, 2013

Saturday

Sep 21, 2013 at 2:00 AM

A recent letter writer seriously fails by comparing a woman making an individual, personal choice to a madman who kills thousands of people by nerve gas. Comparing death by nerve gas to a spontaneous or medical abortion is asinine.

A recent letter writer seriously fails by comparing a woman making an individual, personal choice to a madman who kills thousands of people by nerve gas. Comparing death by nerve gas to a spontaneous or medical abortion is asinine.

Good counseling would be informing women of their options and allowing them to make an intelligent choice, as delivered by Planned Parenthood. Good counseling does not utilize disdain for a political party to promote an agenda. Good counseling is not condemning and using propaganda to fill women with fear and guilt. Good counseling would be informing men and holding them responsible for birth control, evading unwanted pregnancies.

Hypocrisy is advocating for a fetus yet turning one's head to the death of children by guns, drowning, starvation, beatings and nerve gas. Hypocrisy is not protecting the children.

It is the right of a woman to evaluate her situation and that of her fetus and make her own difficult personal decision. Accordingly, it is equally wrong for an individual, political party or religious entity to dictate an individual's right to make his or her own personal decision.

To my knowledge our political leaders do not send government workers out, collecting pregnant women and performing mass abortions.

Gail Cornelius

Port Jervis

Once again the Record shows its lack of direction, respect and dignity for its readers.

On Friday's (Sept. 13) front page, there was a wonderful story and a photo about the excellent achievements of the students at the Mount Academy, which should make everyone who read the article and lives in the Hudson Valley very proud to know that there are still young people and dedicated teachers out there working extremely hard to make a difference in our world.

What was the purpose of putting this horrible and disturbing article on the same front page? I think it is a disservice to all of your remaining readers and an outrageous and tasteless thing to do. I hope the person who made the decision for this front page, who perhaps is a parent as well, has the common decency to apologize to the readers.

Very disappointed with the Record.

Michael Mont

Montgomery

It is hard to see how the Record's editorial board drew its conclusions in the recent editorial "Middletown can teach lessons for the state" (Sept. 10).

It's true that the New York State School Boards Association disagrees with the governor's proposed "death penalty" for low-performing schools because his proposed means of administering the execution — a state takeover of schools, charter school conversions or mayoral control — address none of the root causes of low performance: poverty, transiency, absenteeism and inconsistent parental support, not to mention a persistent rise in district operating costs.

Nonetheless, NYSSBA, Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders share common ground on a number of promising reform initiatives that NYSSBA has championed.

One example is community schools, which address many of the risk factors in students' lives by offering mental health programs, health clinics and family support services in a school setting.

Another example is early learning initiatives such as full-day pre-kindergarten that give disadvantaged students an opportunity to keep up with their more well-off peers. Both of these grant programs were enacted into law as part of this year's state budget.

The Middletown School District's recent federal grant is another good example of a school district working to address the kinds of challenges described above.

Far from preferring to confront one another, as your editorial suggests, on the point of raising student achievement, it seems that Middletown city schools, NYSSBA, the governor and legislative leaders have more in common than not.